


The Guardian

by LORBEERPRINZ



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, yes both of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 02:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15353877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LORBEERPRINZ/pseuds/LORBEERPRINZ
Summary: For centuries, this family has told and heard stories of a fabeled "guardian" and his alleged connection to the Radiant Hero's sword Ragnell, always searching for a candidate worthy of carrying the legendary blade. Hundreds have already been through his training, with varying results. Now it was the time for the current generation's son to prove himself in a process that would take years.





	1. The Mother

**Author's Note:**

> I bet this has already been done to death, but I'm just always late to the party.

She observed the man at the far end of her small dinner table carefully. Just minutes ago, he had knocked at her door and pushed himself into the house uninvited after just a short greeting that was nothing more than compliance to politeness than a heartfelt hello.  
She hardly even knew who he was, though it was not like she saw him for the first time. The woman had met him before, many years ago, when he had suddenly appeared before her shortly after the birth of her son. He had looked at the child, examined it carefully with a distinct level of boundaries he knew he shouldn’t cross. Despite that, her husband had been furious at this display, briefly accused her of cheating, even though, according to the mysterious man, it had been more than obvious that this child was the product of marriage.  
She had met him before that as well, though she only vaguely remembered him towering over her young self, looking down on her with cold stares, dismissing her. How she had found him after that, after she had grown into a woman, had married and born a child, was still beyond her.

And now he was back again, sitting quietly in her tiny kitchen, a wooden cup of water between his hands. This was the only thing she could offer, unsure whether she should wait for her husband to come back from his work on the fields to deal with the situation. Somehow, she was sure she’d be unable to compliment him out of her house on her own.  
He had this kind of… aura. A foreign feeling encompassed the man like a flowing mantle.

No, she told herself, she shouldn’t discriminate. But at the same time, he looked at her with these strikingly red eyes as if she was the one not welcomed in this house. Silent and piercing, he had what she found was the typical look of a scholar, right down to the pale skin, long robes and smooth hair. She had never understood what a man of such obvious status wanted from her small, poor family.  
Was he just abusing an old legend passed down in her family like a tradition, about a mysterious guardian who would come and look at her bloodline’s newborns, generation after generation, and pick out the most capable ones to teach and train them according to yet another story, that of the “Radiant Hero” that was being passed down for generations and hardly anybody around them cared for? After all, it was impossible for him to be that person, right? There had to be more than one.  
She remembered how her father had told stories about his own time with one of those “guardians”, how he had wanted to teach him the art of the sword for a while during his childhood, but had given up after some time when her father had proven to be more capable of swinging a pitchfork than a weapon. Her grandfather, meanwhile, had apparently been killed when trying to make money as a mercenary shortly after having finished his training with the “guardian”, or so the stories went. The scholar had disappeared until her own birth after that, she’d heard, but despite that, the family had always lived a comfortable, if humble, farming life without having to worry about money, as it would almost magically come to them in times of need.   
Apparently, members of her family tree had witnessed similar situations in generations before her.  
But it was absolutely impossible this was always the same person. Looking at him more closely, while he, after a while, had decided to not look at her anymore and silently let his gaze hover about the tiny house, she began to remember his characteristics from the few times she had seen him many, many years before and how they were exactly the same now. She didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits, but she also could not shake off the feeling that there was not more than one person in play here.

Maybe he was a Manakete, she began to think.  
Those beings were all but extinct from what she knew, but it was the only explanation she had.

“So?”, she finally began after becoming impatient with his silence. He was the one who had barked in here, invaded her little home without a word or invitation, had done nothing so far as giving her and everything around them cold looks of indifference. She didn’t even know his name. Nobody did. “What do you want?”  
He finally turned to look at her again, red eyes piercing through her. She wondered if that… thing on his forehead was a proof of royalty or something like that. Her only base for this was vaguely remembering that some royals on the neighboring continent, the Ylisseans, were said to carry marks on their bodies. Of course, she had never seen any of them herself.  
But this would be even more ridiculous. There was no way members of the Ylissean royal family would come all the way here to the furthest, poorest corner of Valm to visit a random farming clan, “Radiant Hero” legends or not.

“I didn’t come here for you, if that’s what you mean”, the man answered, voice clear, but rather devoid of emotions. It had the stereotypical call of a scholar’s, the woman found, but it was the first time she noticed the sightly foreign-sounding melody his words possessed. He pushed the water cup away from him, carefully rested one hand over the other. For a brief moment, the faint outlines of a bitter smile appeared on his face.  
She wanted him to leave. Something about him was just so… off.  
“Don’t worry, though. I’m not here to produce any harm, I merely want to… visit someone.”  
He rose from his simple chair and began wandering around the small space, long robes and hair flowing and swaying behind him. His clothing was understated, practical for whatever his profession really was, but not without elegance. Maybe, she thought, he was part of the Valmese court…?

There was not much to see in this tiny house of hers and the man seemed not interested in anything, really, slowly making his way towards the small fireplace. It was not the stove that received his attention, but rather the big sword that hung very prominently above, the only impressive piece of decoration her family owned.  
The heavy sword had been passed down her family line generation after generation, legend had it that it used to belong to the “Radiant Hero” and what was most impressive to her was that it had not been sold by anyone yet. Nobody on Valm really cared that much about this “Radiant Hero” when this country had its own legends and kings. Though he wasn’t unknown but from what she could tell, hardly anyone really got excited anymore.  
She remembered she had wanted to sell this weapon when her family had been in a very dire situation after a long period of drought and bad harvests. It had been her husband who had been fiercely against it, despite having no connection to the piece. They had fought very harshly over this, he had even demanded of her to instead sell the only other family heirloom she owned, her last memory of her mother. Closely before the situation had become too dire for the family to handle, enough money to wipe away all their troubles had quite literally appeared before their doorstep.

The green-haired man raised a hand and let his long fingers run over the sword’s shagged hilt and slightly dusty blade, leaving a thin, hardly visible trail along the way. Shadows crept upon his eyes as he gazed at the sword, leaving the woman to wonder if he, his mind, was even here anymore. Was this a normal occurrence for sages? Regardless of that, it was almost infuriating how he had fallen silent once again.  
“It’s dirty. Please clean it thoroughly, Ragnell doesn’t deserve this.”  
Her eyebrows began to twitch. How did some random sage that probably knew nothing but books and spells dare to criticize her householding skills?

He returned to the table, slowly coming back to reality. She still couldn’t shake off the feeling that something about this man was different from any other sage she would meet at any point in her life. She swallowed, the feeling of insecurity around him irritating her even more than his rudeness.  
“You still haven’t told me why you’re here. Are you that fabled family guardian?”  
His lips curled into an amused smile.  
“‘Guardian’, you say… Well, maybe it is something like that. But please don’t get the wrong idea, if I’m guarding anything, it’s not your family, but rather the legacy it has been given. That is all.”   
He rearranged some of this long hair so that it fell in front of his shoulder instead of waving to the sides and was about to sit down again. So he did not deny this kind of role at all.   
“You must be from a very long line of ‘guardians’ then”, she continued, “since this’s been going on for generations. Or so they say, anyway.”  
His smile disappeared again, slowly giving way to the almost featureless look he had sported for most of his visit. It was a shame, the woman thought, he had almost looked approachable with that smile. But now, all she saw once again was ice in human form.  
“I’m not, but what I am should not really be much of your concern. What I would rather like to talk to you about is--”

The door flew open with a loud thud, mess of blue hair rushing through.  
“Lunch break! Dad’s coming too!”  
The boy — her boy — halted all of a sudden, looked at the shovel in his hands, then made two swift steps backwards and threw the shovel outside, remembering right in time how often his mother had asked him to leave the farming tools outside when they were exceptionally dirty. She sighed. He was still carrying tons of muds inside with his boots.  
When her son returned to the room, he finally noticed a guest was present, stared at the man for a second, then wiped his hands on his shirt and extended one of them as he had been taught. The visitor did not take it, however, once again showing more impoliteness than she had ever expected from someone as gracefully as him. She had always thought that learned people, travelers, sages, royals and so on, had exceptionally good manners.  
Instead of shaking the boy’s hand, the man knelt down until he was roughly at her son’s level, close enough that the boy had to retract his hand. It was possible for her to see now how relatively small the man actually was; she had seen before that he surely wasn’t as tall as her husband, for example, but kneeling down like this he was only slightly taller than her boy.  
“Hello, Priam. I don’t think you remember me, but it seems you have grown up well since the last time I saw you.”  
“Uhm...”, Priam started after a moment of hesitation, “thanks… I guess…?”  
His glance fell over to his mother, who was unsure on how to proceed. Her still nameless visitor examined the boy from head to toe, always careful to not overstep the boundary of space between the two of them, using his eyes only. She saw her son stare back at the man in confusion.

The man rose, sighing lightly as he pushed himself up to his feet again. Brushing the dust and dirt off his robes, he returned to the table once more to actually sit down again this time. Picking the water cup back up, he did not drink from it as much as he began rotating it between his hands.   
“This boy is making good progress”, he began, “so I would like to offer him my… as you would probably call it… ‘guidance’. I think he would do well with it. Priam could finally be someone capable of becoming worthy of Ragnell’s strength.” His gaze swiftly fell to his side once again and towards the sword on the wall.  
“Ragnell?”, Priam chimed in, “you mean this sword? I can have it?”

“No, you can’t”, his mother intervened.   
They had no use for a swordfighter in this parts of the land, it was peaceful enough and mercenaries to hire were plenty in case the village was in danger. They had done this before, the whole community collecting some money to buy hired swords for a job or two in bad times. And despite, some of the men around were able to fight.   
Nobody needed another fighter. Priam was needed on the fields.  
Priam pouted and sunk into the chair he had chosen for himself. Their visitor’s eyes wandered over to the boy and for a split second, Priam’s mother thought the mysterious man was showing another sudden, rare smile, but she wasn’t sure. It was gone in a blink.

“Please consider it”, the man began again, “I have to admit I observed him during his field work before, physically he already shows signs of having all it takes to make the best use of Ragnell and continue its legacy. I will take care of him personally, of course, no harm will ever come to the boy. I can teach him - reading, writing, everything he wants to know. And yes, that includes training in the art of the sword.”  
The lady raised an eyebrow. It was hard for her to really judge this guy’s physical constitution, but if his thin neck and long fingers were anything to go by, his arms and legs were probably just as skinny. Scholars were always like that and she highly doubted he was even able to lift a sword, let alone one as big and heavy as the elusive “Ragnell” that adorned the fireplace and that even her husband struggled to take down and lift back up when she wanted to clean it.  
Priam’s eyes shone with excitement at the prospect of a learning journey, but his mother once again shot him down with a shake of her head. Her boy was way too young to travel with a man nobody really knew, no matter how much of a “guardian” he might be.   
She just couldn’t trust him. Or rather, she didn’t want to. 

“...Mum…?”  
She sighed, but before she was able to say another thing, she could hear the hollow sound of wood scratching on wood brought her out of her preparations to disappoint Priam. Her visitor rose, looking back and forth between Priam and his mother.  
“Well, this is an important decision, I won’t pressure you to answer right now. But I would like you to consider the options for your son. Mothers of several generations before you have been confronted with the same request. The majority agreed and while the results have been mixed, I can very well imagine that Priam here will develop very high potential. But ultimately, the decision is yours.”

She rose as he was about to leave, not even waiting for her to open the door for him or anything. Priam too slid off his chair, having been clearly dreaming before, otherwise he would have never been so silent. He knew the legends surrounding his alleged ancestor and like every little boy, he had always been excited about them, so the meeting someone who appeared to be involved in it, in whatever way that was, must surely be even better for him.   
The door opened before the sage even touched it, making her think for a moment he was showing off my opening it with magic, but as it turned out, it was her husband who had finally arrived for lunch.  
The two men almost walked into each other with this setup, though her husband was not as surprised about this visitor as she had expected. Instead, he nodded at the sage with a friendly smile, only to earn nothing in return. He slid past the farmer, not looking back. Priam wanted to follow him, but before he could, his mother finally rose to hold him back. This was not the moment, despite the boy’s protests.

“What’s your name?”, he boy shouted after him. The mage turned once again, looking Priam into the eyes deeply. The sudden silence that filled the room felt like it lasted for hours.  
“Soren.”  
Priam’s father rose an eyebrow.  
“Never heard a name like that before. Sounds weird. Foreign?”  
“...yes, you could say that.”   
He continued to take his leave without any further comment. When he was already out of the door, the mage stopped again, three pairs of eyes glued to him.

“I’ll be coming back in a few days. Please think about it until then.”  
And with this, he left.

 

Priam’s parents fiercely discussed the possibilities of letting their son go with this sage for the next days. Surprisingly enough, the boy’s father was very much positive of this, the prospect of his child learning all the things he could not teach him. Maybe he could use the skills he’d gain to earn money and support the family in a better way than on the fields. He didn’t want to admit it, but his wife also knew that that he wanted his son to become a legendary hero.  
Priam’s mother, however, was not so excited. The boy was way too young, and while she had no real reason or evidence to believe this Soren-guy was not going to keep his word, she was quite wary of him. The feeling that something about him was weird would not leave her at all, especially when examining her memories of him retroactively made her remember how she had always felt uneasy about him, his piercing eyes and nigh-emotionless face. What if he really was a Manakete, who could guarantee that he would not one day turn into a dragon and kill, possibly eat, her child? What if her grandfather had not died fighting off bandits, but if he had done it?

About a week later, Soren returned.  
They found an agreement. The sage was allowed to teach and later train Priam in everything he had to offer. But he could not go and just wander off with the boy, he was needed on the fields as well. Maybe one day, they had decided, when the sage, who would still not offer any personal information about himself, had earned enough of their trust and Priam was old enough to decide for and defend himself.  
The youthful man agreed, a mask of ice trying to hide his slight disappointment about how the discussion had run.  
“This is better than nothing at all”, he commented.

And so Priam’s training began.  
They started with the basics, reading and writing, for which Soren visited the family semi-regularly. Then, a year or two later, the sword training began as well and for this he was allowed to take the boy to short outings and Priam was, luckily, always returned safely. Maybe, the youth’s mother thought to herself sometimes, he did this to find someone else to train her son in fighting, as she could really not imagine him doing this himself. However, her son’s excited retellings of events tended to betray this assumption.

Many years later, when he had pretty much turned into a man of statue and remarkable strength, Priam packed more than ever before, preparing for the training that might determine whether he was allowed to pick up Ragnell that was patiently waiting above the fireplace and left with the sage for a journey across Valm, length of it undetermined.  
It was hard to let him go, but he promised to return soon. She knew she could trust him. He was a man now.

She would never see him again.


	2. The Candidate

According to his parents, Priam had met this man before, but it was impossible that he would remember it. After all, the boy had all but just been born when it had happened, when this sage had come practically out of nowhere to visit his parents while they had been adjusting to their life with a newborn son.  
Seeing him now was for the boy like meeting him the very first time, a pale, lean man in long robes and with the longest hair he had ever seen. In fact, he was very different from any kind of person the young farmer had met in his comparatively short life yet, as scholars and sages did not visit these parts of the continent all too often. It was too dirty here, the villagers joked, too boring, too common, there was nothing for them to poke their high-strung noses into.  
But this man was here.

In fact, on the very first glance, Priam hadn’t even noticed he was a man. All the men he knew were ragged, square-jawed and suntanned. Not so this one, he was delicate and refined, a far cry from the boisterous people he and his father were used to working with.  
He was almost scary at first, looking down on him with strikingly bright red eyes, but when he knelt down to him for a greeting — or at least what Priam first thought would be his idea of a greeting — he put on a light smile that seemed to melt the ice the sage had surrounded himself with.

“Hello, Priam. I don’t think you remember me, but it seems you have grown up well since the last time I saw you.”  
Not having heard anything about this man from his parents yet, Priam was quite confused about this line, it was something relatives or close friends of the family would say. Maybe, Priam thought for a moment, he was a long-lost uncle or something like that.  
But his mother’s icy disposition towards him would cue him in on the possibility that this was not the truth. 

As the scholar discussed Priam’s future with his mother, he mentioned that he wanted to teach the boy, with the ultimate goal of letting him hone his skills in fighting until he was able to make use of the fabled sword that he had admired for all his life, a weapon of legendary power. He knew the stories around this sword and the man who was said to have wielded it, his allegend ancestor, the “Radiant Hero”. Those are just stories, his fellow villagers kept telling him, enjoy them while you’re young, but they won’t help you when you get older.  
Nobody really knew if the continent he was said to have saved even existed.

Priam’s parents entered a heated discussion after the man who had identified himself as “Soren” had left. This discussion would rage on for several days, though Priam did not get to hear most of it. His parents were secretive enough to send him away when they talked about it, or chose times when he was busy with work or his friends.  
But it was not like he didn’t catch anything of it.  
He wished he had his own say in this, this was all about him, after all, but his parents claimed he was way too young to make such an important decision and it was their responsibility to make the best decisions for his future.  
Luckily, when the sage returned, they had found a solution.

And so, sage Soren would visit the small family from time to time, teaching Priam the basics of reading and writing.  
Priam quickly realized that this part of his training wasn’t as exciting as he had hoped for and Soren was a stern teacher. Mistakes were pointed out extremely quickly and in brutally analytical fashion, to the point where Priam would from time to time come to believe it was impossible for him to reach the high standards his teacher had set for him.  
“Hogwash”, Soren would say to him then, “nothing is impossible. It’s a question of hard work.”  
He wasn’t wrong, Priam found out. Even if there were things that didn’t work as intended in the beginning, his own impatience making him try to bite off more than he could chew, not helped by Soren’s standards offering him those big pieces, was often his biggest enemy and when he sat back and tried again and again, he would eventually get the desired results. It was indeed a question of hard work.  
Being able to read and write made Priam come miles and leagues ahead of the other children his age, the next formal institution so far away from their small village that none of them even really knew what a “school” was.  
But while all of this was nice and made the boy feel important, it was ultimately not what he was actually yearning for.

It would take a few more months of irregular teaching visits strewn into the everyday farming life until his parents would finally let Priam go on outings with the goal of training him in the usage of weapons.  
His mother kept claiming she couldn’t trust this man, no matter how many times he had visited now, no matter how many conversations they’ve had. She was easily irritated by him, Priam noticed, and Soren himself, realizing this early, had never made any attempts at humoring her. His main interest lay in Priam alone, he always said.  
So when they were about to set off for the first time, just for a few days to get Priam familiar with the goals and contents of his trainings, his mother took him to the side and urged him to be careful — on the one hand because the woods and streets outside could be dangerous, but on the other hand, she also mentioned things about Soren he had never even thought about. How she had seen him in her own childhood having looked the exact same, seemingly frozen in time beyond natural human development, how his choice of words and faint dialect implied he might not even be from Valm at all, things like these. Even his father chimed in this time, asking him to always keep his eyes open. Priam, however, had never noticed any of these things, he had no idea how people outside of his village spoke to begin with. For all he knew, Soren could just be from the other side of the continent. He had always assumed the sage might be from Chon’sin, for some reason.

Before they left, Soren presented Priam with a small, wooden training sword, perfect for his height. He loved it instantly, had borrowed one from his friends before, but never owned one for himself.  
As it turned out, the sage himself was no user of swords himself. Instead, he taught Priam verbally, the boy using the motions he described to him, never revealing where his knowledge came from, no matter how many times the young trainee asked. At first, he doubted a strictly verbal training would do anything for him, but it worked with getting him to know the general motions of techniques he could use, finding out ways to train by himself, improve his strength and stamina.  
While the boy would hack away at trees and barks, Soren observed him silently, only raising his voice when he had anything to complain about his technique. He should find out most for himself, though, the sage said, and find ways to make them work best with his own style. 

The other thing Soren did was ward off dangers. Wild animals, bandits, he drove them all away with a swift use of powerful magic. Many a time, he got rid of hazards before Priam had even noticed they were there.  
Soren’s magic was impressive. Priam had only very rarely seen a mage in action and after some time he noticed that the man’s wind magic wasn’t only impressive to him because he had very little to compare to, but also because it just was very strong. Unfortunate fools who thought they could rob a peaceful sage and his young apprentice were often dealt with in one or two strikes.  
He always made sure no harm would come to Priam, without fail.  
The only injuries the boy received were of his own making, followed by Soren’s heavy critique and skillful treatment with a vulnerary or even a staff on occasion. Priam always felt bad from being scolded. Sure, scolding was nothing new to him, no life could go without getting into trouble with one’s parents, but Soren’s disappointed sighs, his looks of slight dismissal and harsh words pointing out every tiny thing he’d done wrong stung especially bad.  
At the same time, his smooth hands treating the boy’s wounds, his reassurings that next time he’d surely do better, his words of belief and faint smiles underlining these, they all felt so good. Priam swore to himself to make sure his stupid mistakes would not happen again. Every time he returned home, he used what little free time off farming work he had to hone his skills without the sage’s instructions, wanting to surprise him with his progression.  
It didn’t always work, but from time to time Soren seemed genuinely impressed.  
Priam was shaping up to be the perfect candidate, he claimed.

As Priam grew, so did the length of these training outings. While his parents were still not happy with the situation, they also noticed that he not only became stronger, he also came back with an assortment of other skills he was able to put to good use within farm life. He’d learned to hunt, make his own food from very little ingredients, had begun to appreciate the simplicity of his life in the village, despite his yearning to become stronger. With every year that passed, his parents became prouder of his accomplishments.  
Wooden swords turned into real blades. The day he would be allowed to pick of the legendary Ragnell grew closer with every moment.

During their outings, Soren was always very silent and when he talked, his words were carefully selected and rarely had to do with anything but the situation at hand. In early years, Priam mostly wanted to know the obvious things: where the sage had come from, why he had taken up the role of a family “guardian”, if he really believed in the legend of the Radiant Hero, things like these.  
Soren hardly ever answered. The only thing he kept repeating was that, while parts of the legends surrounding Ragnell and its wielder had definitely been exaggerated or fallen to the wayside over time, the gist of them, the main events and figures, were all true.  
This was the best way to make Soren talk, he would go on and on stressing how the Radiant Hero Ike, the man Priam was said to share his bloodline with, had not only been strong, hardworking and talented, he had also been incredibly kind, accepting and considerate.  
No matter if Hero-King, Radiant Hero or whoever else, behind each legend of a warlord was an actual person.  
Such nights of talking were also the moments in which Priam could see more of Soren’s rare smiles. He wasn’t sure why, but whenever the sage told his tales, his face would cycle between more emotions than in any of the weeks before combined. Shadowy frowns were just as common as reserved smiles and bright flickers of his eyes. Over time, Priam noticed how these different emotions appeared to be triggered by certain people or events that appeared in Soren’s short stories.  
But no matter how much Priam asked and pleaded, Soren would never reveal why he knew so much about these legends.

As Priam grew older, his questions became more detailed and precise.  
He wanted to know why Soren’s stories sounded more like an actual recalling of events instead of war reports from history books. He asked him where he had gotten the knowledge from to verbally instruct him in sword fighting so well. Remembering his parents’ words, he had also noticed over the years how Soren’s face and stature never changed, no matter how much time passed. He always had the same, pale, soft face that was way too perfect even for an adult done with growing and changing. While it was impossible for Priam to determine how old the sage might be, he should have started getting some small wrinkles at some time, did he? Was he, maybe, a Manakete?  
But whenever the teenage Priam tried to push these issues, Soren deployed different strategies to avoid them. He cut him off, something he hardly ever did otherwise, or worded his answers so short and carefully that they did not answer anything in the end.  
Apart from that, however, Priam grew to enjoy Soren’s company more and more. The secrets the man made about himself certainly helped to strengthen his aura of mystery, which combined well with his general silence. It meant that even though Priam wanted to know more, he also learned to not overstep the boundaries between them, and from his childhood on the farms, he had no problem with silence himself. He knew, no matter how critical, dismissive and closed off Soren could be, he was also quick to come to his aid in danger, his instructions were precise and his magic fierce.

“You’ve become pretty quiet lately”, Soren remarked one night on their way back to Priam’s village. “Getting bored of drilling me with questions?”  
Priam, tired from a day of wandering and training, shrugged while he massaged one of his arms.  
“It’s pretty obvious you really don’t want to answer them, so I guess I shouldn’t bother you anymore. You’re plenty smart and strong, that’s enough to know.”  
The sage snickered shortly, gaze wandering from the fire to meet with Priam’s eyes. The flames made them seem carry an even deeper red than usual and their flickering gave them what almost looked like a sparkling effect. Soren smiled.  
“I see. You’re becoming more similar to him with every day… Maybe you’re actually ready to take up Ragnell.”  
He didn’t directly say it, but Priam was glad to finally hear those words. He had spent years and years with training and refining his skills, travelled and wandered until his feet hurt, always waiting for the moment the legendary blade would “officially” be his as promised. Whenever Soren had caught him taking it down from its spot above the fireplace to get a feeling for it, weighing surprisingly heavy in his hands, which over the years became less jarring, he would tell him off rather harshly, saying the time wasn’t right yet and no matter how much Priam would protest, the mage would only be contempt if he returned the sword to where it had been.  
But now, the time had finally come.

Upon returning to the village, they found a pile of rubbles and ashes where Priam’s house had been.  
A few days ago, a fire had broken out, they were told, nobody knew why. It had happened at night, surprised and quickly engulfed Priam’s parents, who had had no chance to escape.

“What are you going to do now?”, Soren asked as the two of them stood before the simple graves.  
Priam leaned onto Ragnell, which the villagers had retrieved from the wooden hut’s leftovers while searching for the remains of his parents, the handle scorched and in urgent need of repair. Without even looking, he could feel the mage’s red eyed gaze glued on him. He shrugged.  
“There’s nothing left for me to do here now. And besides, I’d wanted to leave forever anyway, it’s been time to get going. I’ll just… try to get stronger, it’s the best thing I can do, I guess.”  
Soren stared at one of the graves in front of him now. His face was icy as usual, but the cloudy, almost milky stare in his eyes betrayed his facade. Priam knew this look of his, it usually happened when the sage appeared to drift away into his own world, full of memories and feelings the other man had no real idea of.  
“Even the strongest ones struggle with losing a beloved person. It’s okay for you to rest for a while.”  
Priam shook his blue head, however, and fastened his bandana. Soren had given it to him some months ago, saying it would be a great help in keeping sweat and hair out of his face while training. He was right.  
“No, I need to move on. I _want_ to move on.”  
“I see.”  
Soren took his leave, but not before giving Priam a light pat on the shoulder, opening his mouth in preparation to say something — but in the end, he left without a word. This was fine, Priam knew what he had been wanting to say. The young man looked at Ragnell. Those constant comparisons to the Radiant Hero were beginning to feel too heavy.

They left the village again the next day and despite Priam’s reassurance that he was able to take care of himself now, Soren insisted on tagging along and assisting him in refining his skills.  
The sage took great pleasure in seeing Priam grow more and more into the image of the Radiant Hero he had always painted of him. Priam, however, was sure he did nothing but live and be the way he felt was natural to him. He decided that the best way to get the most useful training in between their small mercenary jobs was to seek out the strongest opponents possible. Time and again, bands and armies throughout Valm tried to recruit the two, but they refused all invitations, though Priam was sure Soren’s talents could all but guarantee him a very lucrative career under Emperor Walhart.  
“I am done with political and military affairs”, Soren would only say.

Priam grew his hair out.  
Over the past years, he had become very fond of life on the road, being out in the nature, and had quickly learned how to ensure his survival. Back in the early days of his training, he’d end up scared when left alone in a dark forest, no matter how hard he’d tried to deny it, now he looked onto these events of his childhood with mild amusement and appreciated the times alone when Soren disappeared for a while, never mentioning where he went, but always finding his way back to Priam sooner or later, no matter where the mercenary wandered.  
Eventually, a few years after their last visit to Priam’s hometown, they discovered an island off the western coast of Valm. It was known as the Garden of Giants, a place hardly inhabited due to its harsh living conditions and fruitless soil. They decided it was the perfect place to stay, as rumors and fables of Priam’s incredible strength, defeating challenger after challenger, had begun to make their ways across the land. He could utilize those and make strong people come to him, Soren argued.  
Once again, the sage was right.  
People came, Priam bested them. Some ran away, battered and beaten, others wanted to stay and learn from him. He’d point at Soren as the one who had laid all the foundations, but Soren refused to take any more trainees. And so Priam took it up for himself to fight these challengers again and again, training both them and himself.  
But no matter what he tried, Soren kept comparing him to the elusive Ike and despite his best tries to ignore them at this point, Priam grew weary of them. Legends of the Radiant Hero’s successor spread further.

He still admired Soren, though, was grateful for all he’d done for him. His intellectual and magic abilities were unsurpassed, he had grown into appreciating his unchanging, near-flawless looks more than finding them creepy. If he didn’t want to spill the secrets surrounding himself, that was fine.  
But he could surely do without all the comparisons. Sometimes Priam got the feeling what Soren was seeing in him wasn’t even a successor, but Ike himself.  
But he wasn’t Ike. He was Priam.

“I know”, Soren said one day when the blue-haired had finally decided to address the topic, “and I’m fine with that. You’re very much your own person, Priam, and you will always be.”

The sage was gone the next day, and while his sudden disappearances were nothing out of the ordinary, he did not return. Years passed, challengers came and went, but Soren never did.  
News of war and Walhart’s eventual defeat in it made rounds, Priam only paying passing attention to them. The only really remarkable person to show up on the Garden of Giants after many years was the Ylissean King and his band of “Shepherds”. They, too, challenged Priam and his men and won, to everyone’s surprise. Their incredibly skilled tactician made Priam remember someone.  
He decided to join the Ylissean army for a while, silently thinking he might run into his mentor again one day.

But before he could even start looking for him, the Fell Dragon darkened the skies.


	3. The Guardian

The small hut was still the same he remembered it from his last visit several years ago. Just barely big enough to house a family, the wooden building would have told a story of a long life if there had been much of a story to tell in this simple corner of the world.  
As the family did not own its own farm, just a relatively small patch of land to sustain itself and sell whatever might be left over, there was no room for luxury or even decorations, everything was as practical as it had to be.  
The sage did not mind that, simplicity was very well in his favor. The wastefully extravagant tendencies of the royals and riches had always baffled him, disgusted him, even, and it was almost disappointing to see that people were the same no matter where he went.  
But that wasn’t the only thing that would never change.

Soren observed the woman that had let him in carefully. He was surprised to see how much she had changed — gone was the little, slightly chubby girl he had visited once when she’d been about ten years old. The next time he’d seen her, after the birth of her first son, she had already grown into a woman, lost some of her baby fat, but sustained enough of it for a healthy pregnancy and a birth free of complications.  
Today, however, she was noticeably thinner, the life of farming and motherhood seemingly having worn her out. Things like these happened. And from this worn-out face, a pair of blue eyes stared back at him.  
He knew this kind of stare.

She was reserved and cautious, and Soren was sure he knew why this was the case. It didn’t only have to do with the fact that he had suddenly shown up on her doorstep without a word, made his way inside her house. No, he had seen stares like these millions of times before, all throughout his life.  
No matter if Tellius or Valm, people were all the same. Even if here, they probably couldn’t really tell why they found him suspicious, Soren had still been confronted with anything from reservation and ignorance to silent rejection. The Valmese knew nothing of his kind and yet so many of them instinctively stayed away from him. Beorc—humans, they were all the same after all.  
And so was she, and Soren couldn’t even really blame her. He had lost his will to care long ago. But he was sure she, too, knew almost instinctively that he was different and had no qualms of letting her suspicion speak through her face.  
He clung to the cup of water he felt she had offered him more by obligation rather than actual hospitality.

When Soren had enough of staring at her and meeting her judging gaze, letting his eyes wander around the place in search for anything of interest other than the most obvious, she finally raised her voice. He was the guest, so he had been waiting for her to make the first step.  
“So? What do you want?”  
Her voice was filled with cautious contempt, another thing the sage knew all too well.  
“I didn’t come here for you, if that’s what you mean.”  
He had only very faint interest in this woman. She was important to the big picture, but only on a very small scale overall and depending of the outcome of today’s visit, in the worst case she might never see him again anyway. He had had confrontations like this countless times, had talked to many a mother of a promising child in this bloodline and none of them had ever been really happy about his presence. There were a few couples that would grow into liking him, but more because they wanted their child to be strong and successful, not because they had actually found a friendly base with Soren himself. He wouldn’t let that happen. Having talked to every single generation of people within this family tree, he knew the tendencies of this clan very well and as simple farmers, there would always be a rather natural bridge between them and him, the alleged scholar.  
He wasn’t keen on getting close with these people anyway, even the more promising ones. Keeping the legacy alive, finding someone who was worthy of continuing the work he had promised to do, that was all that mattered.

Needing a moment for himself, Soren rose from the table, drawn towards the only thing that was of real interest in this house. It had caught his eye upon entering already, an overwhelming presence within the monotony of the simply life. He knew it well — not only had it been with the family for generations on end, he had seen and even carried it himself for so long he couldn’t even remember actual numbers. He’d clung to it, desperately, the only connection with Ike he had left.  
After Ike had passed on, Soren had been almost delighted to find out Ike’s adventures he probably had had the times they had spent apart from each other for various reasons had resulted in his genes spreading in this foreign place. He’d gained a reason to go on, to make sure Ike’s legacy was not lost to time. He didn’t deserve being forgotten, even in a land far away from home. It was kind of stupid, these lands had their own legends, but he clung to this as the only way he was able to keep his promise to Ike.  
It was the only way he saw he could live on.

His fingers ran over Ragnell’s blade, the handle worn by time.  
_“Soren, I swear, if I find out you’re trying to follow after me I’ll haunt you until the end of time.”_  
But Ike was already doing it anyway. One reason why he let these generations of families keep Ragnell was so he did not have to see it every day anymore. He knew it was safe, he made sure from the background he had the last word over what would happen to it. At times, he let the most promising members of this bloodline carry it, but those instances had been very rare.  
But teaching and seeing each generation grow up gave him something to do in the what felt were endless centuries until his conscience would finally allow him to disappear from this world.  
The dust on his fingers was faint, but enough to intrude his thoughts.  
He was almost glad about it.  
Asking the lady to clean Ragnell well only rewarded him with an annoyed stare by her.  
She would never understand why this sword deserved to be spotless. It represented a legacy.

He returned to the table, memories still heavily hanging over him. It was time to go on with the conversation, he had come here for a reason, after all.  
It turned out she was definitely suspicious of him, not that he had expected much else. But Soren was not here to explain if or how he was the same person that had been watching the family for many generations. Whatever theories had developed over time, they did not concern him.

Before he could get to the main point of his visit, however, the door behind him flew open with a slam, a young boy running at him.  
He didn’t appear to notice him at first, though, more concerned with leaving the dirty shovel he was carrying outside. His blue eyes shone as he declared his hunger to his mother, excited about the prospect of lunch. Soren observed the boy he had last seen up close as a newborn closely. While he had seen him from afar a few times when he’d visit the village to take a quick glance and see if everything was going well for the family, it was only now that he could see that the farming work he’d been introduced to at a rather early age did him surprisingly well.  
As he knelt to be on eye level with the boy, memories of an equally young child flashed his mind, shining blue eyes that, in a striking difference to anyone else he’d met until that point, showed nothing but kindness as he offered what had tasted like the most delicious food on earth at the time.  
“Hello, Priam. I don’t think you remember me, but it seems you have grown up well since the last time I saw you.”  
The young farmer was understandably confused, but quickly found his bearings after a moment of awkward silence. He was strong for his age, Soren could see that, bright and, from what he had seen from past observations, quick to understand instructions.  
An ideal candidate.

Of course, Priam’s mother protested against Soren’s plans, he had expected as much. She wasn’t the first hard to convincing parent and probably wouldn’t be the last. And so far he had been able to turn everyone’s opinions around.  
Priam himself was much more excited about the prospect of carrying Ragnell one day. This was another point that hardly ever changed throughout the generations — in the beginning, they were all impressed by the huge sword and swore to carry it well, but for many of them, this initial excitement would turn into dread after realizing how much work it actually was. While none of them had ever died during training, some did for various reasons thereafter, be it heoric actions or their own overconfidence. Not all of them turned out to be strong enough to be deemed worthy of the legendary blade in the end.  
But no matter how many had accused him of being a fraud, had outright attacked him to drive him away or get what they wanted, how many had begged him to reconsider his decisions, no matter how well others had come out to be, he would start over from scratch with each promising generation.  
And frankly, no one had really impressed him as of yet.

Upon leaving, Soren urged the boy’s mother to think about it more closely, he was quite sure his training would benefit Priam in the long run. Even if he did end up returning to the village, being able to read, write and swing a sword would surely bring him way up ahead of most in his age group. This annoying woman just had to think a little more practical and with the immediate future in mind.  
He briefly came across the boy’s father, a burly man who took great pride in his work and his family. He, too, was suspicious of Soren, obviously. They had not been on good terms several years ago either, when the farmer had accused Soren having seduced his wife.  
A fool, obviously, but he clearly cared for his family.

When he was about to leave, Priam ran after him and asked for the sage’s name, much to the latter’s surprise.

 

_“Oh, hey, what’s your name? I’m Ike!_   
_..._   
_...hm… you’re not talking much, are you…”_

 

He shook off the memories, it wasn’t the time for them now.  
He complied, one of the few times he did this, usually trying to keep as much as a distance to the families as possible at this stage. He only needed their trust in his abilities, not his person. Sometimes, the moment for this would come during training, but not yet. However, he also knew the boy would not stop demanding it, he already knew Priam was this kind of person, he appeared to have taken an immediate interest in him. The sage wasn’t really sure if that was good or bad, but he gave his name regardless.  
Asking the parents one more time to think well about the issue, he finally turned and left.

Luckily, Priam’s parents had come to an agreement when Soren returned.  
This wasn’t always the case, families had already fallen apart over the situation they had suddenly found themselves in. But Soren had little interest in those people’s personal dramas. Either they would send their child to study under him or not.  
Priam’s parents were surprisingly clever, not wanting to fully part with their boy yet, but also knowing that they shouldn’t pass up the opportunity of education for the child. It wasn’t ideal, but in the end Soren was fine with the arrangement they had found together.

From the next day on, Soren would come to the small village more or less regularly to teach Priam the first basics. Letting him learn to read and write was an opportunity to not only get to know the boy a little better, it also helped him gaining his parents’ trust some more. He would need that for the time Priam was ready to go and learn from him the meat of he wanted him to know — the sword.  
Whenever Soren wandered through the village to visit Priam’s family, eyes were glued on him, rumors quickly spread. Used to talks behind his back and puzzled stares, the mage didn’t care all that much, but tried to be secretive, negativity spreading towards the farmer family would definitely hinder his progress.  
As Priam grew older, the homeschooling lessons evolved from comprehensive basics to more advanced topics he could need in his life as a promising fighter: warfare, the rough basics of strategy, but also a little history and politics, only so he knew what was going on in his country. Soren himself had observed the political ongoings on Valm for many years, educated himself on the fabled Alm and his successors mainly for the purpose of passing on this knowledge, not to make use of it himself. He hardly cared for the legends and events on either Valm, Akaneia or wherever else.

Priam was often bored and slightly frustrated by these lessons, he was far more interested in the small journeys they had begun to take from time to time, where Soren would show the boy how to use a sword, what to do when being attacked, how to hunt and survive.  
He learned remarkably fast and with every year, Priam’s prowess grew.

Their journeys would become longer.  
Soren took the boy, who was growing into a young man at this point, to see parts of the continent he had never imagined to encounter. He selected places that would have some sort of importance to the training, where terrain would allow for different types of fighting and survival strategies. From time to time, they sought out opponents for Priam to train with. Most of the time, however, it was just the two of them.  
In the early years, the sage would get easily annoyed at the barrage of questions the inquisitive boy shot at him about his personal life. Seldomly was a candidate so keen on finding out everything he could. But Soren knew he was better off keeping his distance, if he revealed too much, Priam would only be confused and overwhelmed.  
Or even scared.  
There was no place for discussion about his person.

If they had to talk in the evenings, Soren preferred to talk about someone else — the one without whom neither of them would be here.  
He hadn’t done that in a very long time, just spoken about what had transpired in the times leading up to forming the legend of the “Radiant Hero”, letting his memories form words. He took great care to not reveal too much, however, to not reveal he had been personally present during all of this. After all, this wasn’t about him.  
If he was really true to himself, Soren’s conscience always kept pricking him a little during those evenings. Ike had never wanted any sort of praise or attention, he had just done what he’d had to do. Stories and legends slowly weaving through Tellius had always made their travels hard on a regular basis, until the two of them had decided to leave in search for new lands.  
And now he was doing everything in his might to keep Ike’s legacy and the legend that had formed around it alive.  
Then again, this was the only real way to keep himself alive, keep the promise he had made.

From time to time, bandits would try to attack them, thinking them easy prey.  
The sage was swift to prove them wrong, and with time, Priam learned to do his part in protecting himself. He never had to, really, as many of these foolish robbers would go down easily to Soren’s magic, but the sage was able to see how Priam progressed and coped with ambushes.  
His instinct to help and protect was at least as strong as his sword arm was becoming.  
The older he became, the less frequent his questions were.  
From inside and out, he appeared to be turning into the splitting image of the hero he admired.

Sometimes Soren could barely keep himself from calling him Ike.

When Priam was a grown man, still rather young but nevertheless built and toned, the sage decided it might be time for him to let him have Ragnell. This would also mean they were to spend even more time together, even when Priam might think he would be alone, he never really was for long. Soren had to see that nothing happened to the legendary blade, after all, make sure that it never fell in the hands of anyone who had nothing to do with this bloodline.  
It was only meant to serve the ones ready to keep the legacy alive.  
And Priam surely was.

The next time they returned to Priam’s hometown, the hut that used to be the place of his birth was nothing but a pile of ashes. It had happened very recently, a faint smell of burnt wood still lingered in the air when they stood before the remains of the house, Priam having fallen even more silent than it had already become natural for him.  
Soren was not giving any more condolences than necessary, this was a battle Priam had to fight on his own. But he knew the emotions in play, he knew the silence hanging over the events like a heavy veil. He knew the feeling.  
“Even the strongest ones struggle with losing a beloved person. It’s okay for you to rest for a while.”  
But Priam did not want to rest.  
Just as Soren had expected.  
And so after retrieving Ragnell from fellow villagers that had found it beneath the ruins, unwillingly wading through a sea of condolences, the two of them were on their way again. There was nothing left to hold them here.

They traveled, fought, trained, saw new places. For many a time, Soren pondered to leave, knowing fully well that Priam was ready to take care of his own life, but at the same time, the sudden bout of semi-aimless wandering almost felt like the peaceful times he witnessed after the fall of goddess Ashera.  
Even when he left to take care of things, to see places that managed to pique his own interest ever so slightly, he would always find himself returning to Priam’s side sooner or later. It was almost like a natural call. Keeping an emotional distance was becoming harder, but at this point, it was Priam who had begun to push away.  
He saw Priam face challenge after challenge, unwilling to stand down to anyone. Small mercenary works here and there, he never wanted to be fixed to a place or occupation. The Valmese army wanted him, but he did not want them. Soren was very glad about that, he had no interest in dealing with this continent’s political business.  
Somehow, word of this pair — or at least of Soren himself — had made its way to the Valmese court, Emperor Walhart himself sending recruitment decrees. Soren killed each and every messenger, making sure none of them ever returned to Walhart’s place and bring a message that would provoke the fearsome conqueror into dealing with him directly. He had no place for that, hoping that the man thought his messengers didn’t make it to their destination. It seemed to work.

On several maps of Valm, a small island off the south coast of the continent had caught Soren’s attention.  
If Priam wanted to face more strong challengers, it would be easier to have the name he had made for himself in their years of wandering carry throughout the lands and invite people to him. They had seen most of Valm, Walhart was attacking province after province to make them his, and neither of the two was keen on getting caught up in the emperor’s crazy schemes.  
Settling down in this place proofed to be a little harder than at first expected, as the soil was hardly fertile and weathers tended to be harsh. It seemed like ideal conditions for their enterprise and Priam loved it.  
It was fine for Soren as well, he was tired of wandering around. As time passed, however, he would still leave occasionally, noticing that Priam was often looking for space for himself. It was obvious to him that he could not — and probably did not want — to be as close as he had been to Ike, it was impossible. But that did not quite matter. He appreciated Priam and his achievements and it was sure to him the man might have become wary of him. It happened, it was nothing new. The sage began travelling again.

Priam had built up a host of men and women he had bested and impressed so much that they had wanted to stay and train with him, a following to be proud of. Sometimes they asked Soren for guidance or training, but he was not interested in doing that. He was exclusively occupied with the Radiant Hero’s descendants.  
One day, Priam came to him seeking out a talk that had nothing to do with Soren’s usual tasks of organizing the place. This was quite rare, Soren had realized that Priam had taken some distance and dedicated himself to training his men even more intensively. The times they had talked about the legends and history of Tellius had been all but over for a while.  
“Sometimes I feel like you’re not even acknowledging me”, Priam said to him, bluntly as ever. “You know I’m not this Ike-guy, do you?”  
It came to Soren that this was the first time in quite a while since they had come here that he took a long, hard look at the man in front of him to notice the differences, both physical and inner ones. He hadn’t felt he needed to do that, thought he knew about anything about the blue-haired he needed to know. But maybe he didn’t. And maybe this was alright.  
After all, the only person he had ever felt he’d known almost everything about was Ike.  
At the same time, however, the similarities were so strong, so striking that year after year, the sage had felt more deeply at home at this man’s side than he would have ever imagined. No other candidate had induced this kind of feeling of familiarity in him before, even though he had been through so many generations that he’d lost track of them.  
But Priam was right. He wasn’t Ike.  
And maybe it was time to take measures so that he would always remember that.

“I know”, Soren finally said after a long moment of silence, “and I’m fine with that. You’re very much your own person, Priam, and you will always be.”  
The same night, he packed lightly and said his silent goodbye to the Garden of Giants. He knew Ragnell was in good hands and was sure Priam would do well without him, as he always had when Soren had needed some time for himself. The blue-haired had a whole army of men around him now, and it grew with each day.  
Only now, his men would keep him entertained for the rest of his time.  
Soren preferred journeying anyway. It reminded him of the past, with all the stinging, bittersweet memories it entailed. They had settled down only very late into Ike’s life cycle, his dear friend had pushed on and on for as long as his legs had carried him.

Soren lost track of the months he wandered. Maybe they were years.  
After some time, he boarded a ship across the seas and to the neighboring continent, made his way through the harsh climates of Regna Ferox and Plegia towards Ylisse. He wasn’t sure what he was actually looking for, maybe it was nothing at all.  
For how long did he still have to go on like this?

Sitting on a sandy hill, tired and worn out, the mage hardly felt the huge earthquake brought by the reawakening of a beast so gigantic it darkened the sky all on its own. He saw it cast its black shadows over the Plegian castle, watched as chaos ensued while the dragon rose to the clouds.  
Maybe, he thought, it would be over soon and he would have kept his promise anyway.  
He almost hoped it would be the case.

But the day of total darkness did not come.


End file.
